In order to facilitate reading of the specification, the following terms are defined. Optic axis herein refers to the direction in which propagating light does not see birefringence. Polarizer and analyzer herein refer to elements that polarize electromagnetic waves. However, the one closer to the source of the light will be called a polarizer, while the one closer to the viewer will be called an analyzer. Polarizing elements herein refers to both the polarizer and analyzer. Azimuthal angle φ and tilt angle θ are herein used to specify the direction of an optic axis. For the transmission axes of the polarizer and the analyzer, only the azimuthal angle φ is used, as their tilt angle θ is zero.
FIG. 1 shows the definition of the azimuthal angle φ and tilt angle θ to specify the direction of the optic axis 1 with respect to the x-y-z coordinate system 3. The x-y plane is parallel to the display surface 5, and the z-axis is parallel to the display normal direction 7. The azimuthal angle φ is the angle between the y-axis and the projection of the optic axis 9 onto the x-y plane. The tilt angle θ is the angle between the optic axis 1 and the x-y plane.
There are a number of ways of producing pixelated colored light for display applications, such as for example, using a conventional passive or active matrix organic light emitting diode (OLED) device. Another way is to employ a liquid crystal display (LCD). In typical LCD systems, a liquid crystal cell is placed between a pair of polarizers. Light that enters the display is polarized by the initial polarizer. As the light passes through the liquid crystal cell, the molecular orientation of the liquid crystal material affects the polarized light such that it either passes through the analyzer or it is blocked by the analyzer. The orientation of the liquid crystal molecules can be altered by applying a voltage across the cell, thus enabling varying amounts of light intensity to pass through the LCD pixels. By employing this principle, minimal energy is required to switch the LCD. This switching energy is typically much less than that required for cathode ray tubes (CRT) employing cathodoluminescent materials, making a display that utilizes liquid crystal materials very attractive.
The typical liquid crystal cell contains a color filter array (CFA) comprised of red, green, and blue transmitting pixels. To transmit a large portion of the light from the backlight unit (BLU), the transmission spectra of each of the CFA pixels must have a large full-width at half maximum (FWHM). As a result of the large FWHM, the color gamut of the LCD is, at best, approximately 0.7 of the NTSC color gamut standard. Additionally, as light impinges on the CFA, more then two-thirds of that light is absorbed by the CFA, permitting for less than one-third to be transmitted. Correspondingly, this absorption of light outside of each pixel's transmission spectra results in a loss of overall display efficiency.
A transmissive LCD is illuminated by a backlight unit, including a light source, light guide plate (LGP), reflector, diffuser, collimating films, and a reflective polarizer. The reflective polarizer is used to recycle and reflect light of the undesired polarization. However, not all of the light of the undesired polarization is recycled and not all of the recycled light exits the BLU with the correct polarization state. Therefore, only a small portion of light reflected from the reflective polarizer is recycled into the correct polarization state. As a result, an unpolarized BLU light source results in nearly a factor of two efficiency loss upon passing through the bottom polarizer.
LCDs are quickly replacing CRTs and other types of electronic displays for computer monitors, televisions, and other office and household displays. However, LCD's suffer from poor contrast ratios at larger viewing angles. Unless the contrast ratio is improved at large viewing angles, the penetration of LCDs into certain markets will be limited. The poor contrast ratio is typically due to increased brightness of the display's dark state. LCDs are optimized such that the display has the highest contrast ratio within a narrow viewing cone centered on axis (at zero degrees viewing angle). As the display is viewed off-axis at larger viewing angles, the dark state experiences an increase in brightness, thus decreasing the contrast ratio. When viewing full color displays off axis, not only does the dark state increase in brightness, but also there is a shift in color of both the dark and bright states. In the past there has been an attempt to improve this hue shift and loss of contrast ratio by various methods, such as the introduction of compensation films into the display or segmenting the pixel even further using multi-domains. However, these methods improve the hue shift and contrast ratio only slightly and for a limited viewing cone. Also, the manufacturing of compensation films and multi-domain liquid crystal cells is typically expensive, thus increasing the overall cost of the display.
Other flat panel displays try to solve the viewing angle problem by incorporating a photoluminescent (PL) screen on the front of the LCD, which is called a PL-LCD, as described in W. Crossland, SID Digest 837, (1997). This display employs a backlight unit of narrow band frequency, a liquid crystal modulator, and a photoluminescent output screen for producing color. The PL-LCD light source utilizes wavelengths that are in the UV, which would accelerate the breakdown of the liquid crystal materials. Also, the PL-LCD light source is much less efficient than the standard cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) used in typical LCD displays.
In general, it would be beneficial to produce a display that did not suffer from the problems associated with typical LCD displays. As discussed above, these drawbacks are loss of efficiency (due to unpolarized backlights and usage of CFA's), poor color gamut, and loss of contrast and color at larger viewing angles. OLED displays overcome some of these disadvantages, however, they currently suffer from short lifetimes and higher manufacturing costs. Part of the higher manufacturing cost is inherent in the OLED design, such as the need to pixelate the OLED emitter region and the greater complexity of thin film transistors (TFTs) for current driven devices.